Dayton Daily News

TURIN, Italy — After a sunny Sunday afternoon spent driving the Lancia Delta, Fiat 500 and Alfa MiTo through the hills surrounding this historic Italian city, I stopped for cappuccino at a sidewalk cafe in Piazza Vittorio Veneto, where the annual Turin Festival of Chocolate had just begun.

La dolce vita. Life is sweet.

It could be sweet for Fiat and Chrysler if they give these three very good cars a few tweaks and get them on the road in the United States, as they hope to under their proposed alliance.

The first Fiats could hit U.S. roads and selected Chrysler dealerships in as little as a year. If all goes according to plan, large numbers of Fiat-engineered cars could be rolling out of Chrysler factories in North America by mid-2011.

The 500 minicar, MiTo subcompact and Delta compact showcase the best of Fiat's modern products in the three vehicle classes that are its strength and Chrysler's greatest weakness.

Lancia Delta

The Delta four-door hatchback from Fiat's luxury brand is the largest of the three cars I tested. At 178.0 inches long, it's 0.7-inches longer than a Honda Civic sedan. Its wheelbase is an identical 106.3 inches.

The Delta offers a roomy and comfortable interior, trimmed in supple leather and with soft-touch materials at most of the places a driver will touch.

Like all the cars I tested, it came with Blue & Me, the system Fiat developed with Microsoft to manage iPods, mobile phones and other devices.

The Delta was roomy, comfortable and quiet. The 1.8-liter twin-turbo 4-cylinder gasoline engine generated 180 horsepower and plenty of torque for confident acceleration and fast cruising on the autostrada. At high speeds, the car remained smooth, quiet and stable.

The climate control system was excellent, a welcome change from the days when an Italian car's air-conditioning was like having a tired squirrel yawn in your face.

The Delta shared one shortcoming with every Fiat I drove: tiny cupholders sized for Red Bull cans, not the big containers typical of American drinks.

Fiat 500

Simply too cute for words, the award-winning 500 is 139.6 inches long, 6 inches shorter than a Mini Cooper.

Like the Mini, the 500 offers retro charm and modern features, but the 500 costs several thousand dollars less than the Mini. The 500's front seat offers plenty of room, while the rear seat is serviceable. The arcing roofline provides excellent headroom.

The interior design is charming, with body-color plastic trim and the speedometer and tachometer arranged in concentric rings on a single gauge in front of the driver.

The interior materials in the car I tested consisted of pleasant checked fabric upholstery and hard plastic trim on the dash and doors. The parking brake had a thin plastic handle that was the only thing in the whole car that felt cheap.

The base 500 comes with a 1.2-liter engine in Europe. Like Mini, which does not ship its base model to the United States, look for Fiat to sell only the more powerful, sportier versions of the 500 in North America.

Alfa Romeo Mito

Bellissima. At 160 inches long, Alfa's sexy two-door subcompact would trump the Mini Cooper like Isabella Rossellini walking into a dinner party behind Angela Lansbury, if Fiat had not already designated the 500 as its Cooper-killer.

The MiTo (pronounced "Mee-Toe") takes its name from Milano (Milan) and Torino (Turin), the neighboring cities in northern Italy that have been the brand's home.

Alfa was founded in Milan in 1910. It built its reputation with a string of legendary sports cars and became a global icon with the Spider roadster Dustin Hoffman drove in The Graduate. Fiat, which was founded in nearby Turin in 1899, acquired Alfa in 1986.

The 155-hp turbocharged 1.4-liter 4-cylinder engine sings, and the 6-speed manual transmission is as sweet and smooth as cannoli.

The black interior wraps around the driver, seats hugging you tight and all the controls easily at hand. The materials are an appealing mix of black leather and soft-touch trim, with a few carefully placed pieces of brightwork.

From its V-shaped grille to its round taillights, the MiTo is a stylish Italian riposte to hot hatchbacks like the Audi A3 and Honda Civic Si.

Click here to see Fiat photos.